


The Screw Up & The Saint (Or Commonly Held Misconceptions About The Watson Siblings)

by ozmissage



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Character Study, F/F, Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozmissage/pseuds/ozmissage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Perhaps she is a bit twisted. But so is John, in his own way. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Screw Up & The Saint (Or Commonly Held Misconceptions About The Watson Siblings)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkseraphim04](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=darkseraphim04).



> Much of the characterization and inspiration for this fic was drawn from John's blog (the official BBC produced one). One of John's comments there mentions Harry is 36 which is how I decided she must be his younger sister, although I think she's often assumed to be his older sister in fandom. 
> 
> Discussions of alcoholism. Major spoilers through 2x03. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

She gives John the phone at the end of a rather awkward conversation. It is the first real conversation they have had in years come to think of it. Of course it would end in shouting and of course she’d be the one doing most of the shouting, the one getting them kicked out of the pub, the one calling the owner a wanker, the one their mum hisses _stop causing a scene_ at as if she’s six again and pulling up her skirt to flash her parents’ guests at the Christmas party distracting John from his bloody awful piano playing. Of course. She’s Harry, designated family fuck up. 

She still gives John the phone. 

“I don’t need it,” he mutters. 

“You don’t need the cane either, old man, but you’re still hauling it around. Just take the damn phone.”

She meant to have it wrapped, or at least nested in a bit of that crinkly paper Clara insists every present needs to be considered proper, but she settles for thrusting it at him instead. 

“Fine. Thanks…for this,” he says, gesturing to the phone in his hands. 

A sheepish smile flashes across her brother’s lips and Harry feels a familiar pang of affection. He used to muss her hair. She can’t remember the last time he did that. She can’t remember the last time they touched at all.

Impulsively, she throws an arm around his shoulder and gives it an awkward squeeze. He stiffens slightly, looking altogether too formal to be receiving a hug from his little sister, and Harry pulls away. 

“You sure you don’t want to keep this?” John asks, his thumb tracing the engraving on the back. 

“Me and Clara are over, mate. You’re welcome to have a go at her now if you like.”

John reddens. 

“I wouldn’t…I’d never... _Harry_ ,” he stutters indignantly. 

Harry winks at him.

“Of course you wouldn’t. You’re St. John.”

-

They don’t properly talk again for nearly three weeks, but in the interim John begins to blog. 

It’s fascinating really, like getting a ringside seat to her brother’s psyche. It’s a side of him she’s never been allowed to see before. Maybe no one has seen this side of him. John is, after all, disgustingly private. Harry can’t understand that particular impulse. She wears her emotions like messy badges of honor. 

_You’ve got no filter,_ Clara would say, sometimes sweetly, punctuating her words with a light kiss to Harry’s nose and sometimes darkly, angrily, shouting it at her and adding a “fucking” after the no. 

Now here John is sharing his adventure with the great and magical Sherlock Holmes who can decipher her life story from glancing at her phone with the whole world. Or at least with the other five people who read his blog.

-

 _He missed you being a girl though,_ John texts later. 

_Tell him I can flash him, if he’d like._

-

She has a drink shortly after John’s first case. It’s her first in three weeks. She was out, she met a girl with an impossibly short skirt and a pixie cut hair. They shared one pint, then another, and then Harry went back to the girl’s place without finding out her name. It’s a familiar story.

She wakes groggy and filled with guilt, so she leaves before pixie cut can wake up and make things more uncomfortable than they have to be. She takes the long way home in hopes that the crisp, chilly morning air will clear her head. It’s not the screwing a stranger she regrets, she was in need of a decent shag. It’s the pints. 

At home, she discovers John published a new post while she was out. He’s having a go at self-manned checkout counters. His rant makes her giggle. She can imagine his face going red as he shouted at the machine. Harry has always liked John best when he’s annoyed. He’s freer then, livelier. 

Maybe that’s why she always goaded him into rows when they were growing up, shouting at him about leaving the seat up and eating her crisps—stupid things, but to Harry the fact that he bothered to shout back meant he cared. 

Harry sighs. 

Perhaps she is a bit twisted. But so is John, in his own way. 

She opens a new comment box and begins to type.

-

 _Are we ever going to talk somewhere that’s not your bloody blog?_

_Lunch? Tomorrow?_

-

He cancels their lunch date. _Something’s come up_ , he says on the phone and Harry knows the “something” is Sherlock shaped. 

She’s jealous of the man and she hasn’t even met him yet. In the span of two months John and Sherlock have become as close as brothers. Closer than she and John ever were, and it’s not fair. John has a family. John has her. And she’s supposed to have John. Genetics have to count for something. 

She supposes they were close once. 

Just before he buggered off to war, back when she and Clara were still as happy as all of those toothy strangers that pose for the family photos that come with new frames. For a brief span of time they talked every day. John came round to theirs for dinner, for tea, for no reason at all. John envied her life. 

Then she wrecked it. Deep down she suspects it wasn’t the drinking that John couldn’t abide, it was the chucking Clara. 

He couldn’t believe the perfect picture wasn’t real. 

Her brother, it turns out, is quite the idealist. 

-

_When do I get to meet this Sarah? I need to make sure she’s good enough for you._

_You mean you want to know if she’s too gorgeous for me._

_These things are important, John._

-

“Isn’t this all a bit dangerous?” Harry asks when she finally convinces John to meet her for tea. “Running around with this mad man, solving crimes like you’re a bleeding superhero?”

John takes a sip of his tea, grimaces and then blows on it in an ineffectual attempt to cool it off.

“I was in Afghanistan, Harry.”

As if she could forget. 

“All the more reason to enjoy the quiet life.”

Even as she’s saying the words, she knows how silly they sound. 

Her brother thrives on heroics, on adventure. He carried her three blocks when she was eight and snapped her ankle after taking a nasty tumble over the handlebars of her bicycle. John was barely two inches taller than her at the time, and if she hadn’t been writhing in pain, she imagines she would remember the image in all of its absurd glory. But as it is, she only remembers her big brother promising _everything will be all right_. 

Besides, he’s finally stopped using the cane. 

“Stop worrying about me,” John says. “How are you?”

Harry looks down at the slight tremble in her hand. 

“Three weeks without a drink. One more and I get a shiny coin.”

“I’m proud of you,” he says and Harry believes it. 

She should say it back; she knows she should because she is proud of him. She always has been. 

“This tea is fucking terrible,” she says instead.

-

_I knew she’d chuck you eventually. Did you give her my number?_

_Ha Ha._

_They say ‘LOL’ now, old man._

-

A long time passes before she sees him again.

She falls off the wagon once and sends John incoherent text messages in the middle of the night. She sends some to Clara too. The responses are radically different. John calls, his voice thick with worry. 

“What happened?”

Harry doesn’t know how to respond. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. For a split second she wanted the craving to stop more than she wanted her sobriety. A second is all it takes. But she doesn’t know how to say it in a way that John will understand, in a way that won’t sound like bullshit. 

She apologizes instead and promises to go to a meeting before segueing awkwardly into a joke about her brother’s other half, but John has to go. He always has to go. The call ends and Harry finds Clara’s message waiting for her. Short and simple, it cuts right to her heart. 

_I won’t do this again._

Harry deletes it. 

She deletes Clara’s number too. It was past time. 

She doesn’t take another drink. Instead she works, she goes to meeting, she takes up knitting and puts it right back down again because she’s not a fucking grandmother. She reads her brother’s blog, reads about his near death experiences and each one makes her stomach twist. 

She leaves comments. Argues with the trolls who dare to say nasty things about John. She calls John far more often than he answers. 

Then it happens. 

Sherlock is all over the news, has been for weeks. But the story takes a turn, twists him into some kind of villain. Then he jumps. 

-

_If you don’t call me soon, I’ll kick 221B Baker Street’s door in._

-

John shows up on her doorstep with a bag in hand. 

“I can’t…I can’t stay _there_ ,” he says.

Harry pulls him inside, pulls him into a hug. 

“It’s all right. I still have a couch,” Harry says. 

-

She pries him out of bed every morning. Makes him tea, makes him get dressed. 

All the while he obsesses. John insists that Sherlock isn’t dead and his every waking moment is devoted to proving it. Harry was jealous of Sherlock once. Looking at John with his unshaven face and his desperate need for hope, she finds that jealousy has given way to hatred. 

The look in John’s eyes is familiar. She’s seen it in the mirror enough times to recognize it and her brother doesn’t wear it any better than she did. 

They sit together on the couch, their eyes trained on the television. John isn’t paying attention. Neither is she. 

She takes his hand, gives it a quick squeeze. 

“It’ll pass, you know?” she says. 

It’s a half lie. Addiction never leaves you, but it can fade with time. As for grief? Harry’s not sure about that one. 

John keeps staring straight ahead, but he squeezes her hand back to let her know he heard. 

“John?” she asks and he turns to look at her. 

She realizes it’s now or never and she doesn’t want it to be never. He needs to hear it. Needs to know it. 

“I’m so unbelievably proud of you,” she tells him.

John winces and turns his face back to the screen.

“You shouldn’t be.”

-

_Thanks for letting me stay with you._

_I don’t know why you left._

_I have to find him. I’ll come back when I do._

_And if you don’t?_

_I love you, Harry._


End file.
